• A bus packed with Donald Trump fans made an overnight trip to Washington for the inauguration
• Passengers were hopeful that the new administration would address illegal immigration and inflation
• Some of the passengers made a similar bus trip on Jan. 6, 2021, to Trump’s Stop the Steal rally that ended in violence

ON THE ROAD TO WASHINGTON — Josh Logan looks forward to seeing Washington without getting pepper-sprayed.

The last time he was there, the professional piano player from Hillsdale County rode a bus to attend what he thought would be a peaceful rally supporting outgoing President Donald Trump. The date was Jan. 6, 2021. He got within about 20 feet of the Capitol when “I saw people smashing windows, and I saw a 12-foot ladder materialize,” he said. “Who brings a ladder to a rally?

“I thought, ‘It’s time to go back to the bus.’”

Logan was back on a bus this morning, rolling along the Ohio Turnpike through the frigid darkness toward the nation’s capital to see Trump return to an office many passengers thought he shouldn’t have left four years ago.

“Now here we are, come full circle,” said Logan, 48.

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A bus that left a Walmart parking lot in Hillsdale County at 10 p.m. Sunday was scheduled to arrive near Capitol Hill early Monday morning, before Trump is set to be sworn in as the nation’s 47th president at noon. On the bus were 47 passengers, including retirees and grandchildren of retirees, a former drill sergeant, a township assessor and an aspiring teacher. One called Washington a “sewer,” another labeled it “evil.”  At least five were in Washington four years ago on Jan. 6.

All said they are more optimistic about their country than they have been in four years.

“I feel more hopeful,” said Shelley Hirsch, of Jackson, wearing a Trump inauguration sweatshirt she ordered on Etsy over a Detroit Lions T-shirt. “I’m looking forward to secure borders, less money going overseas and more conservative values.”

Sitting across the aisle from Hirsch was Paul Szmanda, a 22-year-old law student at Notre Dame. He decided being in Washington for Trump’s inauguration is more important than being home to watch his university play in the national football championship.

“The extent to which he stands up for his supporters, his tenacity, his perseverance, I’ll probably never have another president I’ll be as excited about,” Szmanda said. 

The bus out of Hillsdale was an inexpensive if at times uncomfortable way to see history. Tickets were $150 for a 540-mile overnight journey, about 10 hours in Washington and another overnight trip home.

There were water bottles in a cooler for the nine-hour trip, donated by the Grand New Party PAC, and hand-warmers to ward off expected temperatures in the low 20s once they arrived near the Washington Monument. There were Trump-themed prizes (a Make America Great Again sock cap and a Trump meme calendar), and a box of Fireball shooters organizer Jon Smith brought in case of emergency.

The passengers have a variety of backgrounds and came from across Michigan for the trip, but many shared a common distaste for the government and the media. Some said they don’t trust politicians, be they Democrat or Republican. 

'You can feel the evil'

They all agree that Trump is special.

After the 2020 election she called a “debacle” and the Jan. 6 Stop the Steal rally she attended in Washington, Mary Wilkie “pretty much shut down the news and never watched again. I still don’t till this day. I don’t even watch Fox News.”

Monday was the 64-year-old Jackson County retiree’s first trip back to Washington since Jan. 6, when she was so far back in the crowd she didn’t know that things had turned violent..

She couldn’t persuade her husband to come to the inauguration. “He doesn’t want to have anything to do with DC,” she said. “He says ‘You can feel the evil when you get close.’”

But Wilkie feels better about America now that Trump is back in office.

“I hope we can purge some of these treasonous people out (of federal jobs),” she said. “I don’t know if that’s possible, I don’t know that much about the government.”

Lewis Smith, 67, the Ida Township assessor in Monroe County, said he hopes Trump can lower inflation and reverse “social issues that have gone completely off the rails and this Green New Deal garbage forcing people into electric cars.”

'The savior of the country'

There are more than 220,000 official tickets for the inaugural, which takes place Monday at noon at the Capitol. Some on the bus have tickets, but after the swearing in was moved inside the Capitol because of dangerously cold weather, it was unclear what access those with or without tickets would have to the ceremony, or even to view it. The jumbotrons that had been set up along the National Mall for people to see the ceremony were taken down Sunday, leaving many on the bus unsure of their plans.

Not seeing Trump in the flesh wasn’t important to James Minnick. The 53-year-old Jackson resident attended Trump’s first inauguration in 2017 and wasn’t going to miss doing it again.

“I view him as the savior of the country just like George Washington,” Minnick said.

Clifford Warstler looks forward to more oil exploration; lower inflation and more jobs for young people.

The retired Toledo Police Department officer has voted for Democrats (Michael Dukakis in 1988) and independents (Ross Perot in 1992.) But when he began listening to conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh in the 1990s, his political leanings veered right.

Warstler has been “a Trump fan since 2015,” a view that has cost him in his personal life.

“We lost close friends because I supported Trump,” Warstler said. “My son was pissed at me.

“I don’t understand why there’s so much hate.”

Jon Paul Rutan and his daughter sat beside each other on the bus, just like they did four years ago when they traveled to Washington to show their support for Trump Jan. 6, 2021. When they returned home, they got a visit from the FBI.  

Rutan said he is a former member of the Oath Keepers, a far-right group formed to “defend the Constitution,” some of whose leaders were convicted of felonies for their activities on Jan. 6. 

Rutan, who said some politicians and journalists are involved in a “globalist deep state cabal,” said the closest he and his daughter got to the Capitol that day was taking a selfie in front of the building.

“I don’t condone any violence or trespassing or destruction of property,” said Rutan, 60, of Hillsdale, suggesting there were “agents and provocateurs all over the place” sparking the violence.

“Once you get a ball rolling, others are going to roll with it,” he said.

Now, he and his daughter are “making a pilgrimage” to the same site, and hope to recreate the same selfie they took four years ago.

“I want to show up again as an American, as a veteran, to stand to say the American spirit is still alive,” he said.

The Jan. 6 trip was one of the motivations for Smith to organize the inauguration bus. He had led the Jan. 6 trip that left some passengers pepper-sprayed. Some would later get knocks on their doors from the FBI. 

Several people from that trip four years ago are among the 1,500 individuals (and about 45 Michigan residents) who have been arrested for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol.

Smith sees the current trip as a way to “pay homage” to his friends who committed what he views as “petty crimes” that day.

“I felt responsible,” said Smith, 46, of Hillsdale.

This trip will be different, Smith said. So will the next four years. Being in Washington to see Donald Trump take his place back in the White House is like “closing a chapter,” he said.

“It’s a piece of history that will stay with us forever.”